This week is a significant week for me. Two years ago on April 16, while visiting my parents in Maine, an aneurysm burst in my brain and I had a stroke. I woke up two days later in a hospital two hours away where I’d been flown. 

People tell me that I’m a miracle. The only residual (physical) effect is I have two numb toes on my left foot. Occasionally it takes me longer to find a word that I know I know. Other residual effects include the family trauma, some fear of traveling alone (that I have tackled head on but it is still there), and a confusion about what happened.

Nothing in my health two years ago indicated that there was a risk in my brain. Nothing in my family history. Further, I have a clean bill of health from all the team of doctors. It appears that this ‘episode’ of Emily’s Anatomy was a one hit wonder. I wonder. 

My cousin got married this past weekend. We got to spend the whole weekend with family that I haven’t seen for many years (12-15years,  I would guess). And we celebrated love and we reveled in family. We danced. We danced hard.

There have been a lot of voices that kept me from dancing in my adult life. I know the saying ‘dance like nobody is watching’ – yeah, right. So easy to say. So easy to put on a postcard. 

Since my drama in Maine two years ago, I have lived with less inhibition. I don’t edit my opinions (as much). I ask direct questions. I trust my strength and knowing. Are these the result OF the stroke, of moving into middle life and empty nest, of stepping into executive leadership in our companies? Probably all of it. 

But what this past weekend taught me is that I also dance with less inhibition. I dance like nobody is watching. I dance like I am not watching. The thing about dancing is that when you are dancing – really all in dancing – you aren’t watching. You are just moving and being lost in a community of hearts and pulses, of limbs and voices.  

Stop watching. 

It never would have occurred to me to put on my bucket list “dance with my cousins in abandon”, but now that I’ve done it I’m sure my life would have been incomplete if the ability to do so had been stolen from me two years ago. 

Stop watching. 

Get lost in the dance. Be clumsy and clueless. Be too big, and too many elbows. Step on toes and laugh as you apologize. Look foolish. Feel foolish. Be free. 

Stop watching.